Posted By:
Interior 10-20-2003 14:27
Mostly Sunny, No Precipitation – 35-40 Degrees
Had the kind of hunt Saturday morning 10/18 that makes me wonder why the hell I’m involved in waterfowling. After a mile hike into the reservoir lugging gear I spent 40 minutes in pitch black darkness stuck in knee-deep sucking mud surrounded by ten foot high marsh grass and catails. Several times I thought I was permanently stuck. Fell face down in the mud. Lost my glasses in the mud. Felt a cardiac episode was not far off. Almost disclocated my hip pulling my boot foot waders out of the black, cement-like filth. Finally manged to get set up. Couldn’t really focus without my glasses but thought I saw about fourty ducks fly out of the swamp just after legal, just out of ethical gunning range. Sun rose. Sky was clear. Did not see another flying feathered creature for the rest of the morning. Same spot last year we shot a limit in the first 30 minutes and ran out of shells, had ducks landing on the dog’s head etc. Go figure. One thing I will tell you, I’m done with hiking in 60 pounds of gear and joking around with the knee deep death mud. I think that’s why I bought the boat to begin with- safety and transportation to where the ducks are at…
Posted By:
Westbranch
WFC Sponsor
White River South 10-20-2003 07:45
Sunny & Clear, Morning Fog – 30-34 Degrees – Open Water
Nice day to be on the river, set up next to the corn field. Great little spot. Good cover. Limited shooting on ducks but we knew that going in. Morning brought in 4 Blacks some flights of teal. Couple of Mallards trading back and forth. Shooting was off. We managed to bag a Mallard.
River is still up from last week. Hope this colder weather moves some ducks down to the south.
Geese were pretty active all weekend overhead. Looking forward to some goose hunting. Hope they Stick around for a while.
Posted By:
West/Central interior zone 10-20-2003 04:08
Cloudy, Light Rain & Drizzle – 35-40 Degrees
Sat 10/18 Due to the shutdown of the Champlain zone,and the fact that I have a nasty early season cold, I decided to go do some scouting.Although the weather conditions seemed pretty good I didn’t see alot in the way of ducks.Went to Lefferts,Richville,The creek,a couple of beaver ponds,and around rte 30/rte4.Saw some ducks but nowhere near the numbers that you would see in the Champlain zone.I can’t wait until the 25th for it to open back up.I should be able to get quite a bit of time off to get out there and hunt.With all these changes in the weather hopes are very high that there will be some new ducks trickeling in.we’ll see in a few days. Bubba……
Posted By:
EAST CREEK/LAKE CHAMPLAIN 10-15-2003 18:02
Sunny & Clear, Morning Fog – Over 70 Degrees
Oct.11/12/13
The long awaited season opener on the Champlain zone started with a bang.Actually quite alot of them.Especially considering that the fog was so thick that ducks were 10 yards within steel shot range before you even knew they were coming.But even with the extra challenge my father and I still managed to get 1 Black 4 Greenwings and 1 beautiful Woodie drake on Saturday.Fired a couple shots but got nothing on Sunday.And wound up with 3 Woodies total on Monday.Saw plenty of ducks all three days but between the extreme fog and a great deal of rust in our shooting skills,we came up short on our bag.So now we’re just going to have to sit and wait until the 25’th to try again,at least on the big lake.Hopefully the weather will be more duckie.But either way it’s my favorite time of year.It’s my favorite sport.And it’s finally here.
Posted By:
Westbranch
WFC Sponsor
Richville Dam / Leffords 10-11 and 10-12 10-13-2003 08:02
Cloudy, Heavy Fog – 40-45 Degrees
Hunted Saturday Am in the Richville area. Fair amount of local ducks. Needed some sort of Duck radar due to the fog. Set up bright and early with high hopes. Sunrise came and went and all we could hear was the sound of wings overhead. First season opener that I failed to fire the gun. Lots of shooting to the North and South. They must of had radar. Going to look in Cabelas today for radar set up.
Had a second Hunt with my six year old on Sunday afternoon. He sat it the Boat with the Bird book looking over different local Ducks. Folded up a nice woody and we called it a day. He actually is convinced I’m a good shot. I guess he’ll learn the truth the more he goes with me . Great way to spend some quality time with him.
[Edited By Westbranch on 2003-10-13 08:04]
Posted By:
Rice Breast 10-13-2003 07:58
– – –
VT Hunters should check NH/MA VFE Scott Haight’s posts on Rice Breast. I plucked one of the mallards shot Saturday morning and it was infested with this nasty parasite- first one I’ve seen this year (and I hope it’s the last…) But from the sound of it from the NH/MA forums, it seems to be, from Haight’s observations, pretty prevalent this year.
Posted By:
Inland Zone 10-11-2003 11:26
Cloudy, Heavy Fog – 40-45 Degrees
The duck war continues. Well, now we know where all the birds that were on the CT River went…quite a waterfowl display put on by big flocks of local mallards, woodies, a few teal and hundreds of geese going into the corn. SEAL team one performing a special-ops waterfowl extraction operation this morning in a top secret location. I would love to tell everyone where it was but it would mean certain and painful death for me from the head of classified information enforcement. Right on cue the first mallard appeared 15 seconds after legal shooting time. A couple of flocks of 40+ mallards shucking, jiving and dropping straight in after that. Had my first clean double of the season on a pair of drake mallards. The rest of my shooting was not quite as good. Got so excited I actually pulled on two mergansers. Luckily I missed. Had a group of seven greater Canadas put in fifteen feet away from me- too bad it was October 11th and not October 25th!!! All in all, a delightful hunt with Woodies and Mallards in the bag. Hope everyone did well on Champlain- we were sorry to miss it. Look forward to reading something other than my own posts…can we get a Champlain VFE here or at least some other reports?
[Edited By Rick-Higgerson on 2003-10-12 19:22]
Posted By:
CT River North 10-10-2003 06:36
Cloudy, Heavy Fog – 40-45 Degrees
The weather has conspired against us this week. The combination of some of the heaviest fog I’ve seen on the River burning off late morning to cloudless, windless, bluebird afternoons has not been great. The fog was so dense Thursday morning that we did a complete 360 in the widest part of the river before I realized we were off course (first time that’s every happened) which inspired some coast guard and “chanell 16” comments from the peanut gallery. Hugging the bank after that. I think the dense fog has really been keeping things down on the water. We’ve seen good activity for about 40 minutes after legal and then another burst just after the fog lifts and then very little after the sun breaks through. The swamp we gunned for the opener is pretty well cleaned out. All that being said, we did manage a pretty good hunt Thursday morning with four ducks (woodies and mallards) and two geese splashed. The geese were brought in with all calling as there’s just no way they could have seen our spread through the fog. We got buzzed by a small group of teal right on the water both days right at legal shooting time but have seen very little teal activity other than that. Have they all gone south already? The fact that afternoon temps have been in the 70’s has not helped bird movement. The next cold front should probably bring in new birds. Will miss the Champlain opener tomorrow due to work but will gun the inland zone. Hoping we might see some reports from the Lake…although there don’t seem to be too may other duck hunters left in Vermont from the looks of the forum. A Champlain VFE would be a nice addition…
[Edited By Rick-Higgerson on 2003-10-10 06:54]
Posted By:
CT River North 10-07-2003 15:31
Cloudy, Heavy Fog – 35-40 Degrees
Opening day. Lots-o-ducks. Heavy pressure. Burst of 6:30 activity. Several large flocks. Extremely dense fog kept things slower than we would have thought for the first half of the morning. Another burst of activity around 10-10:30. Then a bluebird day once the fog lifted. Mostly Woodies and Mallards. Rusty shotgunning skills let several groups escape. Someone should really take this single reed goose call away from me… Looking forward to Thursday.
Posted By:
So close…. 10-06-2003 12:51
Cloudy, Winds Calm – 50-60 Degrees
Good luck to all and safe hunting on the Connecticut River tomorrow morning!!! At 6:25 the Valley is going to start ringing with 3 inch magnum reports. With the weather holding cold to the north it looks like it should be one of the better openers on the River in the last few years. I’m hoping for a high speed teal shoot. After 9 months of waiting we’re down to only 16 hours and 35 minutes left as of this post. Post the resuslts of your hunt and let us know how you did.
Tight chokes…
